Dec 18, 2011

Things I've done

I came up with this activity while looking for a creative way to review Present Perfect + superlatives. I think it's awesome to let students use their imagination. They are likely to surprise and more than once to come up with really interesting ideas.


Level: Intermediate
Materials: Cards with adjectives
Target Vocabulary/Grammar: Present Perfect/Adjectives-Superlatives
Prep time: 2-3 min to cut the pieces of paper.


Before the class you'll have to prepare cards with adjectives like: scary, tasty, fun, interesting, rewarding, dangerous, hilarious, bad, sad, etc. These are going to be the basics that will serve as a main guide. To introduce the activity, I suggest that you tell the students that the class is going to be about interesting or remarkable experiences that we've all been through and that using the cards they'll get to ask/answer questions about life experiences. It's important to emphasize that there are no rules and they can choose the verbs they want based on what the cards say. The main goal is to get them to ask questions using the present perfect and the superlative of the adjective in the card. Each student will take a card and use it to ask a question to the person on his/her right, until everybody has asked/answered once. I'd recommend that you do it once or twice as an example until everybody gets the idea.


Eg: 
DANGEROUS
Student A: What is the most dangerous animal you've ever touched?
Student B: The most dangerous animal I've ever touched is a snake. I have never touched anything more dangerous than that.


DELICIOUS
Student A: Where have you tried the most delicious ice-cream ever?
Student B: When I went to Brazil with my family we went to get ice cream. It was the most delicious ice cream I've ever had, I still remember its taste.
Prompt students to use different structures to ask and answer, in fact, it's a good idea to set one rule: Do not repeat the question/answer structure that the previous students. I would also offer a creativity award to the best question/answer. 


When sharing about (important) moments in their lives, students tend to relax and even sometimes forget that they are in the classroom and that they are supposed to learn. I have found this activity very rewarding and lots of fun, and I'm sure you will too!


Enjoy,
MS

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